Ever since humans first began looking up at the stars, we’ve dreamed of being among them. Probably. Maybe. Actually, we were more likely confused by and scared of them for a good few hundred years, but once we got over that, we eventually made it up there. The same is true, it seems, of our film franchises. And some of them did it far faster than the human race.
For certain genres, properties, or characters, ending up on an intergalactic voyage is par for the course. Superheroes aren’t out of place in space, for instance, nor is any franchise that leans reasonably heavily into sci-fi or futuristic technology. But what about vampires, slasher villains, puppets, board game enthusiasts, prehistoric animals, or just a ragtag group of street racers?
If you’re anything like me, you may be fascinated with the curious, usually ludicrous, trope of a beloved, long-running media series that has no business exiting Earth’s atmosphere saying, ‘Get in loser, we’re going to space!’ and launching itself off for its third, sixth, or ten billionth instalment. Maybe they’ve run out of ground-level stories to tell. Maybe they legitimately think it makes sense. Maybe it’s just fun. Whatever the reason, here are ten such franchises listed below, ranked, in ascending order, by how justifiable they were.
Honourable Mentions
Because we apparently do live in the best timeline, actually, there are too many surprisingly space-bound franchises to squeeze into a top ten list, so here are some honourable mentions.
- Godzilla – Godzilla vs SpaceGodzilla (1994): Godzilla is famously found deep under the ocean or smashing a path through a densely populated city, but one of the creature's many variants is from space. The animated Netflix film trilogy also featured humanity leaving and returning to Earth due to kaiju destruction.
- Airplane – Airplane II: The Sequel (1982): Faulty equipment sends a plane careening towards the sun in this parody sequel, with space-affiliated legend William Shatner in tow.
- Critters – Critters 4 (1992): Considering the titular creatures are aliens, it was only a matter of time before Critters went back home. Here, they also travel to the year 2045 and mimic Alien pretty hard.
10. James Bond – Moonraker (1979)
The reason I’m putting Moonraker at the bottom of the pile here is that while a space station is a considerable detour for the British spy, it’s not too beyond the realm of possibility for such a well-travelled character. At this point in the series, we’d already seen Sean Connery blast off with a jetpack, so Roger Moore in zero gravity was a distant but distinct inevitability.
Designed to cash in on the sudden space opera fervour generated by Star Wars: A New Hope, Moonraker is, however, a prime example of a franchise going to space for no real reason other than… Why not? This is especially true considering Fleming’s original novel is entirely set on Earth. It’s still one of the strongest entries on this list, though – capitalising on the comedic lightness unique to Moore, introducing one of the grandest supervillain HQs, and featuring one of the most memorable henchmen, Jaws.
Number of movies it took to go to space: 11
9. Jumanji – Zathura (2005)
You may have never heard of or forgotten all about this spiritual sequel to Jumanji. Directed by Jon Favreau and released a decade after the first film, Zathura also has the same literary origin as Jumanji, so author Chris Van Allsburg is as much to blame for the ‘Wait, why are we suddenly in space?’ factor of it all as Sony is.
The inciting incident is very much the same: two brothers discover a magical board game that sends their entire house, and everyone in it, into outer space. Forced to complete the game to get back home, they encounter scaly aliens, a mysterious astronaut, and some interesting time-bending wrinkles along the way. It’s been pointed out that the Jumanji link does the film a disservice, and I agree – if you forget about the Robin Williams-shaped hole, it’s a great, mid-budget, space adventure for older kids. Josh Hutcherson and Kristen Stewart, pre-Hunger Games and Twilight, respectively, are also among the cast.
Number of movies it took to go to space: Two
8. Dracula – Dracula 3000 (2004)
Being immortal can be pretty boring. Or I assume so, anyway, I haven’t cracked that formula yet. But I assume if you stick around long enough, remaining on Earth must become less and less appealing, as is the idea of doing yet another Dracula movie.
I have a soft spot for anything vampy, even the Gerard Butler-starring Dracula 2000, in which the progenitor of vampires awakens in time for mardi gras in the new millennium. Dracula 3000 has nothing to do with the latter, and it’s probably just as well for everyone involved. Critically reviled, the film takes Stoker’s novel a century into the future aboard a salvage spaceship, which stumbles across an abandoned vessel carrying the body of Count Orlock. It’s the bones of an idea that the likes of Casper Van Diem, Udo Kier, and Coolio (what a cast list…) somehow struggle to find the fun in. Nosferatu 2, anyone?
Number of movies it took to go to space: Between 150-200, depending on your ‘Dracula’ definition…
7. Hellraiser – Hellraiser: Bloodline (1996)
The diminishing returns of the Hellraiser series shifted the films – and the last with any involvement from creator Clive Barker – from supernatural horror to science fiction for Bloodline. The fourth film is also the first and last in the timeline, starting 200 years in the past with a French toymaker and then jumping hundreds of years on to his descendant, who has created a space station designed to ensnare and kill the Cenobites once and for all.
Though I’m more forgiving of this film’s ambitions than most, there’s nothing in the three films preceding this one that has even the barest hint of what’s to come. You could argue, however, that the mysterious otherworldliness of Pinhead and his gang lend themselves to any setting. Hellraiser is also such a relentlessly weird franchise that this kind of unpredictability is as baked in as Doug Bradley’s white face paint.
Number of movies it took to go to space: Four
6. The Muppets – Muppets From Space (1999)
Victorian London, Treasure Island, Manhattan… Is there any place the Muppets can’t go? According to the Henson gang’s sixth feature film, the answer is that nowhere in the cosmos is Muppet-free. “Gonzo's species has always been a mystery,” reads the first two lines of Muppets From Space’s synopsis, “but after having nightmares of being denied entry to Noah's Ark, he begins to realise just how alone he is in the world.” Nightmares, Noah’s Ark…. That’s where we’re starting from.
The search for Gonzo’s cosmic origin is about as far removed from the variety Muppet Show stage as you can get. As a result, a lot of the wit and warmth of the series’ humble felt beginnings are lost in the noise of wacky, sci-fi shenanigans. The original concept involved Kermit being abducted by an alien race, believing him to be their lost ruler. The Gonzo plot, at least, gives Muppets fans some blank-filling lore.
Number of movies it took to go to space: Six
5. F9 (Fast & Furious)
The thing that makes the Fast & Furious franchise tick isn’t its reliance on vehicles, family, or sipping a cold Corona at a BBQ as the credits roll. It’s the characters taking themselves very seriously, no matter what is happening. That appears to extend to at least one of the series’ core directors, Justin Lin. “Going to space was not something I took for granted, or I was very flippant about,” Lin said of the infamous car-in-space scene in F9, adding that he even consulted NASA to craft “one of the most sound action set pieces in our franchise.”
It’s this commendable commitment to realism and a degree of self-awareness that prevents it from being nearer the top of the list. What began as a joke about how to raise the already sky-high stakes among fans, and later, writers, came to fruition with Roman and Tej freaking out while orbiting Earth in the most suped-up vehicle yet – justified, storywise, by preventing the villain, Cipher’s satellite upload. While fans, and even the head of the studio, have bemoaned it as a ‘jump the shark’ moment, I’m just disappointed they didn’t push it further and race across Mars.
Number of movies it took to go to space: Nine
4. Leprechaun – Leprechaun 4: Lost In Space (1997)
Leprechauns are famous for being on cereal boxes, hanging out in Alabama on St. Patrick’s Day, and for the long-running horror film series that, in its fourth entry, does the thing we’re talking about. Played by Warwick Davis, the titular malevolent gold-hunter tries to marry an alien princess in the year 2096 to gain control of her planet, only to be thwarted by a bunch of angry marines he previously wronged.
Naturally, or unnaturally, I should say, the unkillable creature escapes death by… spiritual penis transmission. You can’t make this stuff up, and yet, someone did. If you like this sort of shlocky, B-movie slasher fare, it’s a good option for a bad film night with friends. If you’re looking for quality, logic, series continuity, or any kind of justification for a tilt into sci-fi, look elsewhere. The only thing stopping this one from cracking the top three is that the next two films are set in ‘da hood’, which is somehow even stupider.
Number of movies it took to go to space: Four
3. Air Bud – Space Buddies (2009)
There are 14 Air Bud films, and a reboot on the way, so the statistical likelihood of going to space was ballooning with each passing release – especially when they shifted to straight-to-DVD. Throw in the fact that the series is also predicated on the belief-suspending What If? of a basketball-playing dog, and the seeds for a canine cosmonaut, no matter how deep underground, were sown.
That said, going from the basketball pitch to a space shuttle is still “one giant leap for dogkind”, as per the tagline for Space Buddies. In fairness to the film, the six ‘buddies’ end up in space by accident rather than some contrived animal astronaut programme, but they also go for walkies on the moon and meet a ferret there, voiced by Amy Sedaris, so let’s not award too much credit for logical restraint.
Number of movies it took to go to space: Nine
2. Ice Age – Ice Age: Collision Course (2016)
Ice Age: a bunch of prehistoric talking animals (one of whom is real-life Muppet voice Ray Romano), smatterings of cavemen, and, you know, the ice age. There’s no reason or means for anyone in these films to think about going to space, let alone actually making it there.
But what about dinosaurs? There are dinosaurs in Ice Age: Collision Course. And where there are dinosaurs, there are asteroids – the things that famously kill dinosaurs. And where do asteroids come from? See where I’m going with this..?
But asteroids fall from space, they don’t go to it. But it’s fine, because the animals in Collision Course know what electromagnetism is, and they have access to a volcano and some electromagnetic crystals that can relaunch asteroids. This stops one really big asteroid from colliding with Earth, the cause of which is Scrat, the Looney Tunes-inspired squirrel who is perpetually in mortal danger for trying to get a single acorn. And we don’t have time to also get into the ‘Scratazons’ – aka alien squirrels – and Scrat’s battle with a black hole in Collision Course’s two accompanying short films. And wait, how does anyone know what electromagnetism is?!
You know what, I’m not paid enough to think this hard about Ice Age movies, and we have to move on to the top spot…
Number of movies it took to go to space: Five
1. Friday the 13th – Jason X (2001)
On paper, Jason Vorhees, the silent, hockey-masked serial killer with a supernatural aversion to death, rising 400 years in the future to slay again in space, is utterly preposterous. In practice, it’s also preposterous. But throw your disbelief out of an airlock, and you may agree with me that Jason X is a work of mad genius.
After leaving Camp Crystal Lake for locations as varied as Hell and, uh, Manhattan (not the Muppet one, sadly), writer Todd Farmer pitched the concept to the studio as the only next move for the long-running slasher franchise, arguing that a “fish out of water” environment could reinvigorate the stakes. As well as space, the “hoods” of L.A., Antarctica, and the jungle were also on the docket, but in those exotic locales, we may never have gotten malfunctioning robot nipples, cryogenic head shatterings, VR sleeping bag bashing, so much revealing knitwear, and Jason’s platinum power-up. Friday the 13th has no business being here, but if this is wrong, I don’t want to be right.
Number of movies it took to go to space: 10
